Panuku chief’s pay boost surprise

$80,000 rise blindsides Goff days before vote after his call for CCOs to show restraint on top-level salaries

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has been blindsided in the last week of the election campaign by news the unelected board of a councilcontrolled organisation has given its chief executive a bonus and pay rise worth $80,000.

Goff was not impressed when told the salary and bonus package for Panuku chief Roger MacDonald had shot up from about $565,000 to about $645,000 in the past year.

What’s more, the salaries and benefits of the leadership team at Panuku have risen by 22 per cent in the past year, from $2.7 million to $3.3m.

MacDonald is now the second highest-paid CCO chief, behind Watercare chief Raveen Jaduram, whose salary is about $775,000. His package rose $50,000 this year.

MacDonald’s 14 per cent salary and bonus increase follows calls by Goff for CCOs to show financial restraint on salaries at the top level.

The mayor’s calls were heeded by the board of Auckland Transport when it appointed new chief executive Shane Ellison in 2017 on a salary of $575,000 — a $100,000 cut from predecessor David Warburton’s pay.

All up, ratepayers paid $25m for the salaries of executives at Auckland Council and the five CCOs last year.

Goff yesterday carefully chose his words on the Panuku decision.

“I think that any salary of that dimension is a handsome salary and you need to demonstrate you are

Any salary of that dimension is a handsome salary and you need to demonstrate you are delivering the results.

Phil Goff, Auckland Mayor

delivering the results to achieve that salary. They [Panuku board] need to exercise constraint on salaries at that level,” said Goff.

Panuku chairwoman Adrienne Young-Cooper said much of the extra money paid to MacDonald came from an incentive scheme and the rest from a 2 per cent pay rise.

She said the Panuku board set up a performance-based reward scheme for staff based on achievement of key performance indicators (KPIs). Last year, the average payment was 10 per cent of salary with MacDonald receiving a full year’s payment, she said.

MacDonald has been in the news recently over a private helicopter trip to the Bay of Islands for a day on a superyacht, which was picked up by the Serious Fraud Office in an investigation over the sale of council’s Civic Administration Building.

The SFO cleared Panuku of any wrongdoing over the sale but raised concerns about a possible conflict of interest involving MacDonald’s trip — signed off by the former Panuku board chair Richard Aitkin — saying “its acceptance was ill-advised”.

Meanwhile TVNZ’s annual report for 2019, released yesterday, reveals the state broadcaster’s chief executive Kevin Kenrick earned $1.55 million in the 2019 financial year. This was up from $1.43m in 2018.

Kenrick’s total pay package is now in danger of being more than TVNZ’s entire profit for the year.

While his fixed pay fell from $901,000 to $890,000, his short-term performance incentive rose from $460,000 to $585,000 year on year.

According to the TVNZ annual report, it has 250 staff earning over $100,000 a year. Kenrick is the highest earner by some stretch.